Team america: world police - politics with puppets

Politics International Politics
1

ok, they’re technically marionettes, not puppets. anyway, it opened in the us today. i saw a free preview on wednesday at the local theater.

as entertainment, i thought it was funny. i had pretty high expectations and was a little disappointed. i thought the south park movie was funnier, but i still really enjoyed team america. don’t want to get into the details in case i might spoil it for some of you.

anyway, the general story is that a group of clumsy gung-ho americans go around the world fighting terrorists. most of the time they inflict more collateral damage on bystanders than actual damage on the enemy. sound framiliar? needless to say, the americans win in the end.

what i find most interesting is the response of those who are against the war in iraq. reading the reviews, i wonder if some of these people saw the same movie. a lot of them say that the movie is non-political because it offends all sides equally. the problem is that all sides AREN’T treated equally. the heroes are the bumbling americans who win in the end. i’m a little amused that some reviews could call the movie an indictment on bush’s war on terrorism.

some on the left did read the same things in the movie that i did and there is scathing criticism from that end. some reviews from the leftist media like the village voice, sf cronicle, and bcc pan the movie outright for its message.

i think that this movie will have as much effect on the election as f9/11. it won’t change the minds of those on the other side, but it reinforce the views of those who support the war. unlike f9/11, there are also tons of reasons to see this outside the political realm. the technical merits of the movie are awesome. i was truly amazed at some of the stuff they were able to do with marionettes and the fake sets. and really, how many times are we going to be able to see raunchy puppet sex on the big screen? :slight_smile:

i’m pretty sure that “america! fuck, yeah!” will become an anthem amongst our troops overseas.

dunno if it’s even slated to open in taiwan, though i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s banned from the middle east and korea. not gonna do very well in france, either. but i would be interested in the reactions of international movie goers to this particular flick.

2

I’d say a bunch of bumbling marionettes on a self-appointed mission to ‘save the world’ and too bad for anyone who gets in the way sums the whole situation up quite nicely.

And ‘America, fuck yeah!’ is downright refreshing after all this pious skulduggery about doin’ it all to bring democracy and justice to the A-rab world or whatever the current rationalization of the day is.

If only the world really were one big cartoon show we could all sleep better tonight knowing that reality’s not going to hold any unpleasant plot twists for us.

3

Did the puppet sex-scene make it through the Taiwan censors?

4

Um, it just opened today in the US, I don’t think the Taiwanese censors have probably had much of a go at it yet.

5

The puppet-sex scene didn’t even make it past the American censors.

6

[quote=“spook”]I’d say a bunch of bumbling marionettes on a self-appointed mission to ‘save the world’ and too bad for anyone who gets in the way sums the whole situation up quite nicely.
[/quote]

and they DO end up saving the world… :slight_smile:

7

The best part is a puppet movie probably will have a measurable effect on the results of the upcoming US election. :laughing:

The second best part is a real weapons of mass destruction wanker, Kim Jong Il, is the bad guy in this movie. It’s going to make it just that much harder for the wankers of mass deception to explain away why he isn’t on their premption hit list.

8

I’ve read the reviews and I love Trey and parker’s previos works immensely. I no from reading about it at Amazon that it parodies everybody, especially “hollywood stars turn expert” types. Supposedly Sean Penn sent an angry letter to Trey and Parker about it.

I don’t know, maybe becaue all the missiles, chemical weapons, artillery, and possible nukes will destroy Seoul or something. Please don’t let your partisan views get in the way of any possible logic now.

CYA
Okami

9

[quote=“Okami”]I don’t know, maybe becaue all the missiles, chemical weapons, artillery, and possible nukes will destroy Seoul or something. Please don’t let your partisan views get in the way of any possible logic now.

CYA
Okami[/quote]

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Saddam supposed to have squadrons of Scuds and weapons of mass destruction deployable within forty-five minutes?

10

[quote=“Okami”]I don’t know, maybe becaue all the missiles, chemical weapons, artillery, and possible nukes will destroy Seoul or something. Please don’t let your partisan views get in the way of any possible logic now.

CYA
Okami[/quote]

Yeah… that’s why we took the chemical suits and gas masks… luckily, we didn’t need them.

And Saddam was not supposed to have any nukes.

And Seoul isn’t in Iraq. :wink:

11

I hear that in ‘Team America, World Police, Part II’ Kim Jong Il has bounced back and is on the verge of initiating ‘direct flights’ to the United States.

Or, as a September, 1999 a US National Intelligence Estimate put it: “North Korea will most likely develop an ICBM capable of delivering a 200-kilogram warhead to the US mainland by 2015.”

“Logical consistency, fuck yeah!”*

*Theme song from ‘World Police, Part II’

12

[quote=“spook”][quote=“Okami”]I don’t know, maybe becaue all the missiles, chemical weapons, artillery, and possible nukes will destroy Seoul or something. Please don’t let your partisan views get in the way of any possible logic now.

CYA
Okami[/quote]

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Saddam supposed to have squadrons of Scuds and weapons of mass destruction deployable within forty-five minutes?[/quote]
Was he? Wow, we hadn’t heard. Good thing we took him out and verified that he didn’t, after twelve years of trying to find out whether he had them while he stonewalled.

But tell me, Spooky, should the U.S. act unilaterally? I thought that consideration with allies was on your list of things to do – and South Korea, which arguably has a large say in whether Seoul gets destroyed, has been begging and groveling about its “Sunshine Policy” of appeasement.

13

Arguing that Kim Jong Il isn’t everything that Saddam Hussein was supposed to be is just more serial goofiness from the 0-for-10 crowd pulling the strings of American foreign policy.

14

I think you have that backwards.

Actually, not even backwards…

KJI is everything that Saddam hoped to be.

15

[quote=“Tigerman”]

KJI is everything that Saddam hoped to be.[/quote]

Actually I think Saddam has KJI on one point. Saddam did look kinda cool when he appeared in court after his capture. I don’t think however much cleaning up happens, KJL will never look cool.